To Hunt the Enemy
by Micron
Summary: Two Helghast soldiers are spun in new directions in the aftermath of the Vekta campaign that bring them face to face with inconvenient truths. Enjoy.
1. I

**Disclaimer****: Killzone is a futuristic first-person-shooter videogame for the Playstation 2 gaming platform created by the Dutch development company Guerilla and published by a regional branch of Sony. I do not own any part of Killzone though parts of the plot and characters of the following story are of my own imagination and production.**

**PART ONE**

**U P G R A D E S**

**Alpha Priority Transmission #0000013345271**

**Point of Origin**

**Helghast Command**

**Office of Scolar Visari**

**Authorization…………………………………………………………………approved**

**\Run Transmission\**

**All Vektan ground forces are to retreat from planetside at best speed/ To all Vektabound vessels/ cease transit to Vekta system and return to departure point/ repeat/ all vessels are required to clear a three light-second radius of Vektan space unless otherwise instructed/ initial ground invasion has failed/ battle data in next transmission/ Command out/**

**\End Transmission\**

War, imperialist or no, reeks.

An abject stench inhabited the stale air all around him, an overpowering collage of the ravaged battleground that lay below, body- and bullet-ridden alike. He wanted to vomit, but something inside him had developed an immunity to the trappings of war over his brief but intense career of fighting, or so he assumed.

He lay on his stomach, legs spread slightly for stability. He gripped his StA-52 SLAR with the care and ease of an expert sniper, resting it against the ledge in front of him. Both full and spent clips of obscenely large and menacing armor-piercing rounds littered the area surrounding him. He was perched on the concentric catwalk of a smokestack or watchtower; he didn't know which and it hardly mattered either way.

The courtyard had grown mysteriously quiet over the last few hours and his brain screamed at his body to roll over and sleep. He hadn't eaten or drank or spoken or slept or even really moved at all in possibly a day, and his mouth was bone dry, tasting like copper. He felt the incumbent urge to stop and rest, to recover some of the relaxation he surely deserved. But that was not the Helghast way. The languid amber glow of his rifle scope would continue to hypnotize him for as long as it took to commandeer the ISA headquarters.

Another jetbike whipped over his head like a bullet, and he felt its jet-wash slam across his body in its wake. His helmet's noise dampeners flared to life, awakened by the thunder of the pass. Yet another subtlety of this conflict he had grown accustomed to. He knew it must be close to being over, this mission. And he knew that if so the Helghast's coup of Vekta would be near completion as well.

His and four other companies had commenced their assault twenty-nine hours ago, the initial touchdown on Vektan soil about ten hours prior to that. An armored division whose designation escaped him had laid waste to the headquarters' thick outer walls, allowing them entrance. The ISA had not been expecting them to be so swift.

Pitiable.

The companies had each entered at different sectors of the base, infiltrating through separate routes intending to completely wipe out ISA opposition throughout the entire compound in one multi-armed sweep. Each company's sniper or snipers had been stationed near the edges of the facility in high places. Their job had been simple: alert the rest of the troops of any enemy reinforcements or otherwise notable activity and eliminate any ISA attempting to escape or move about the compound.

That was the difference between ISA and Helghast mandates: the words "neutralize" and "eliminate" were substituted in either case.

The Helghast took no prisoners and showed no remorse. That was the law, the one basis for the Helghast's existence and ultimately their creation, the spine which upheld the fabric of their state, if one could even call it that. Revenge was their purpose. Dissenters failing to comply with this procedure were, not surprisingly, executed.

Scolar Visari had seen to that, after he came to power in the period of social disarray that followed the First Helghan War.

The sniper liked simple orders best, and had carried them out without hesitation or, for that matter, conscious thought. His punishment for being such an effective marksman, he thought, was the rancid meat that lay strewn about the clearing several hundred feet below. As he let his sight move over them all, he thought of the individual shots required to end each of their lives, how he had been so silent and smooth with his trigger finger, like the piston in a syringe. No one had yet spotted him, and it was likely no one ever would.

A less experienced sniper would have been surprised to see a flicker of movement after so long, but he was not. Suddenly, a rampant ISA regular came into the scope's view, making a dash across the courtyard. He was moving soundlessly to the sniper because he was so far below. No matter. Alert was his middle name. He would make this one's dash a doomed one.

The sniper tracked his target, zooming in bit by bit as he did until he had a clear shot at his choice of body parts. He chose one instantly and after stifling his breathing to further steady himself and ensure the accuracy of the kill, he fired.

The muzzle of the rifle let out a deafening crack as the stock rammed violently into his shoulder. Through the crosshairs of the scope's reticle he saw the ISA's neck burst open in a rather gory flurry of hot, bright vermillion fluids and vocal chords as the absurdly large round tore through the ISA, ripping his skin apart without any effort. His otherwise untouched carcass thudded to the ground a second later, along with the noisy clattering of his assault rifle.

Strange how war can so quickly become a graphic exposition in human anatomy.

He noticed afterwards that his heart rate had spiked up minutely during the shot, and he willed it to retreat to its original status, using as few neurons as possible. He felt his pulse in his ears and, desiring the best sniping environment, it bothered him, even as often as it did occur.

The last kill he had made before that had been hours ago, and leading up to it the amount of ISA attempting a most fateful trans-courtyard journey had gradually thinned out, until, now, there was almost none at all. He suspected something would happen soon, a radio call to announce to everyone their victory perhaps.

He adjusted his breather mask that regulated the highly toxic atmospheric gases of Helghan and allowed himself to blink a few times, a luxury he could rarely afford in the field. After another few minutes of nothing--no sounds, no enemy sightings or radio chatter--he shifted his stance, stretching his legs and left arm while still peering through the scope's targeting reticle. He always felt like his muscles were atrophying, just laying there motionless for so long, but he knew realistically it was impossible.

He waited a bit longer. From the exact same spot as his deceased comrade another ISA darted into the clearing. He must have witnessed the previous spectacle because he had the audacity to make an airborne headlong leap behind a large pillar, one of six that dotted the middle of the clearing. This would make things interesting—the sniper would have to be on his toes to take this one down, assuming he wasn't bringing any company with him in which case things could get _really_ interesting. He shook off his feelings of residual weariness and prepared for a challenge.

Not a second after he had made himself hidden from the sniper, a three-round burst of gunshots rang out and the ISA screamed agonizingly. The sniper recognized the shots' spacing and timbre as that of an IvP-18 Tropov, the standard Helghast machine pistol. He lay puzzled in the aftermath of the split-second-long firefight, even though he had not truly been involved.

A short moment later his confusion was redeemed. From the shadows beyond the white tiled pillars edging the courtyard emerged a lone man, his hands outstretched towards the slate-gray sky above, slowly and cautiously approaching the center of the clearing. His Tropov was visible, holstered at the base of his right thigh.

He was at least dressed in Helghast attire and rightfully equipped, his assault rifle (of which the sniper's weapon was a variant) also slung over one shoulder, but one could never be sure who exactly it was in war. He remembered the old saying, "Wait 'til you see the whites of their eyes."

The man seemed surprised as he surveyed the scene in front of him: blood-spattered faces, brains and gore smeared across the ground. The sniper tracked the man through his scope, wary of a traitor or a disguised ISA soldier. The fact that the man had his hands up signaled his knowledge of the sniper's existence in that particular tower overlooking that particular courtyard. And there's only one way he could have known that beforehand…

The man stopped near the center of the clearing and lowered his arms, shifting his gaze up at the sniper.

"Hovenn," he shouted calmly, using just enough force for his words to reach the sniper high above. "Is that you?"

The sniper moved his head away from the rifle scope for the first time since he had arrived at the tower's catwalk. Feeling tension and anxiety leave him, he stood up, though at the same time questions bombarded his thoughts.

"Iziz?"


	2. II

**II**

Hovenn quickly descended the tower via the inner spiraling stairwell he'd used to reach the catwalk when he arrived. _Other parts of a base this sophisticated must have elevators,_ he thought. Surely the office areas with all the cushy velvet upholstery he was sure were part of the headquarters' décor had faster means of vertical transportation_. But not the three-hundred-foot tower of God that I decided to drag myself all the way up. _He spat. _Lazy ISA scum._ But he had to admit, the sniping opportunities it had offered were almost worth it.

He reached the exit to the courtyard's ground level.

Beyond the large, almost perfectly square steel door waited Iziz. He had been examining something on his weapon and spun around.

"The hell took you so long?" he barked. Hovenn gestured cynically towards the staircase of no end behind him. "Oh. God. Well. Let's be off, shall we?"

"What's your hurry anyway?" They started briskly towards the edge of the base. Iziz didn't respond and Hovenn could tell he was overcoming battle fatigue, possibly a full-blown case of shellshock. He empathized with his friend's predicament but knew his own was no different. "Mind cutting the crap and telling me what you know that I don't?"

"Gladly. Provided you stow your crabby sniper syndrome shit and listen to me for a few moments. Now let's get a move on." They were typically jovial around each other but the constant flow of adrenaline required to ensure one's survival while being shot at and gouging men's eyes out altered one's mood a bit. Both of them thought the other was the cranky one.

Iziz was a ground combat specialist. He and Hovenn had known each other for a short time, ever since they were assigned to the same special forces unit a few months before the current campaign. They were both proficient at what they did, and had a mutual respect for each other. Being of the same rank they sometimes felt the pressure of competition but really neither of them cared. They were the closest thing to a friend either of them had in the stringent Helghast society, and that mattered.

Now neither of them was in the mood for idle banter.

Iziz swallowed hard. He was, of course, sweating noticeably, the price of the foot soldiers scurrying around all the time. "Well for starters the invasion has failed, at least this first one." He kept his stare glued to the drab, spiny scrub that dotted the outskirts of the base. "By the way we're going this way to get to the jet bikes we left over here earl—"

"Shut up and keep talking," Hovenn snapped. Iziz looked over at him quizzically. "You know what I mean."

"I guess you haven't heard anything. In that case I'll start at the beginning, but keep in mind this is only what I've heard and it may not be that accur—"

Hovenn shot him a glare. "Right. Well as soon as our assault on the facility began, the commanding officer of ISA Vekta, one General Bradley Vaughton, ordered a small task force of four operatives to make a most historic trek all the way through sea, jungle, mountains, and space itself to their compromised Space Defense platform.

"They made it—how, no one may ever know—past all our forces they must have encountered along the way, including the majority of General Lente's Third Army. They retook the platform from our control, toppling the ISA traitor General Adams in the process, and saved their own recently-arrived Earth Fleet from imminent destruction at the hands of the platform."

As Hovenn digested this he noticed that the jet bikes had come into view at the edge of the clearing, dwarfed by a row of large spruce trees that were so massive they seemed undeterred at all by the unforgiving force of the breeze. He reminded himself that this was what passed as autumn on Vekta. How different it was from the violent tempests of Helghan.

The gravity of failure wiped across his body like a wall of heat.

"More to the point we who actually went inside the compound were alerted by Helghast Command of the… incident… and were given orders, with very little detail attached, to evacuate the planet at best speed."

"By what means?" Hovenn's tone was sharp and demanding.

"That's the part about them giving us little detail. Look, we can check all the comm channels as soon as we get to the bikes but I'm assuming all hell's broken loose up there and they just don't have time for a nice social chat with the ground forces, of which so few remain now."

Hovenn halted abruptly. "Meaning what?"

Iziz stopped and turned to face him. He drew in a deep breath and let it go, looking his comrade in the eye. "We're the last of our unit."

Hovenn felt a sensation of guilt and shock surge through him. "What about the rest of the companies?" he asked, not sure he was ready to hear the response he was about to get.

"Last I saw they were exiting the base their separate ways."


	3. III

**III**

They reached the jetbikes and settled in, booting up the crude network connections they offered.

Iziz worked his console like a magician while Hovenn simply peered into the woods behind them that swallowed the outside light as far as he could see. His thoughts were racing and he judged by the slight trembling of Iziz's arms in his focal vision that he too was struggling not to panic. _What the hell is going on?_

A coniferous spindle fluttered lazily from the parapets of the canopy above to land on the matte black stock of Hovenn's rifle, which was splayed serenely across his lap. Picking it up he admired its thin, rhombic cross-section thoughtfully.

It was a feeble attempt to calm himself.

After a few silent minutes Iziz stopped his bidding in cyberspace suddenly and leaned back from his bike's monitor, apparently taken aback by something. The absence of Iziz's keyboard clacking away was ironically discomforting. "You're not going to believe this."

All was eerily quiet in that moment.

"What?" Hovenn asked, bracing for the answers to his own frightening questions. Fear possessed his young eyes.

Iziz squinted at the data readouts that scrolled across the screen. The text shone clearly in the thick shade of the forest, a mesmerizing bright green. "If I'm reading this correctly, one of the operatives in that noble quest of ISA heroics to the SD platform was none other than our old Senior Officer."

Hovenn glanced back towards Iziz beside him in surprise and disbelief, mouth agape at the unthinkable revelation. "Hakha?" he asked softly, dare he further interrupt the ethereal silence that encapsulated them. "He… _betrayed_ us?"

"Yes. And that's not all."

Once again the two found themselves in a place seemingly devoid of sound. Hovenn couldn't help but hold his breath; the only noise he heard was the hammer pounding within him that was his heart. He swallowed, his throat still bare, and steeled himself for the worst.

Iziz rotated himself to meet his comrade's piercing stare, the leather of his seat creaking audibly in the process. The sickly, almost hostile orange light of his goggles conflicted with the soft emerald of the monitor in front of him.

"We have new orders. And you've just been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel."


	4. IV

**PART TWO**

**C O M P L I C A T I O N S**

**IV**

Colonel Vastok stepped off the main elevator of the capital ship and strode through the reception area into the wardroom annex, fuming all the way. Secretaries glanced at him quizzically as he passed but quickly recoiled back to their workstations when they saw his face. He pushed angrily through the double-doors and made a point to slam them afterwards, intent on making some noise.

A dozen men stood within, their conversations permeating the room. Only three turned to look at Vastok as he entered.

"Easy there, Colonel; we could smell your temper getting off the lift." General Jasqatin waved him over to his position beside a large, black marble table. Vastok obeyed and approached him, deciding it better to let his fury loose in a more private setting. The conversations, all undoubtedly pertaining to the Vekta campaign, resumed.

"Something to drink, Colonel?"

"Please explain to me the rationale behind the post-Evacuation orders Command issued," Vastok said with an icy calm that was noticeably forced.

Sighing deeply, Jasqatin set the empty glass he had been offering on the table. He saw that Vastok wanted to talk business and reluctantly took the bait. "There has only been one such order so I will assume it is the one to which you are referring.

"We're obviously planning the second wave on ISA Vekta; you know that. We ordered our best sniper to hang back and eliminate the traitor who's been feeding the ISA loads of information through his extensive hacking abilities, which we had no knowledge about." He took a breath in contempt. "We think his absence will aide us considerably in the next strike."

"You say 'traitor' like it's a household term," Vastok sneered, his eyes burning with disgust. "A Helghast _traitor_ is not only unprecedented in our history, but also penetrates the very essence of our creed. Our _heritage_, Jasqatin. Don't bring shame upon us all! Do you realize the repercussions this will make back home if it gets out any farther than it already has?"

The general was speechless, weighing his response carefully in fear of further offending his closest subordinate officer. Reacting to his silence, Vastok continued.

"You're in charge of the Vektan theatre now that Lente's gone. For Helghan's sake, do something!" he whispered, balancing his tact carefully. "If there's anyone fully competent in the combined tactical arts of combat and espionage, it's Hakha. Don't underestimate his will to retaliate."

"I don't care for your tone, _Colonel_," countered Jasqatin, raising his voice. "You sound as if I don't even want Hakha dead, and you shouldn't underestimate that sniper's capabilities either." Vastok stopped and looked innocuously back at Jasqatin.

"I see you haven't done any research on my choice so allow me to reassure you: this man collected one hundred sixty-eight confirmed kills in the first Vekta campaign alone. Even you should be impressed by that figure. Personally, I'm stunned. None of the other snipers from his battalion can compare with him. Looking back at his training records, it seems we should have taken notice of his aptitude with the rifle a lot sooner."

Vastok concealed his surprise well, crossing his arms with all the hints of dissatisfaction.

"We even gave him a promotion that's nothing short of remarkable, and listed his mission as top priority, so nobody will get in his way, even if they do check the logs."

"Mm. That's quite a directive," Vastok said, his tone almost betraying his attempts to stifle his amazement.

"I know what you're thinking and you have no reason to worry."

"Ah, and why is that?" Vastok asked, his mood lightening. Perhaps he would finally gain some ground in this conversation.

"What does the name 'Rigel' mean to you, Vastok?" Jasqatin asked, hanging some bait of his own design this time.

The colonel thought for a brief moment, staring off into space. "Nothing, except that it's a very bright star in the Orion constellation. Why?" he asked, confused.

"That's not the Rigel I'm talking about." The general took a sip from a dark, red-tinted liquid, and afterwards frowned at it. "You just can't get decent wine these days."

"What the hell are you up to, General?" Vastok interjected.

Jasqatin glanced at his wristwatch. "Meet me back here in three hours. The crowd will be gone and I'll show you something that will please you very much I think."

Vastok eyed his superior suspiciously. His interest had been effectively piqued and Jasqatin knew it. "Very well." With that he turned towards the exit.

"And one last thing, Colonel."

Vastok had only gotten a few yards away when he stopped and returned his attention to the general. The color had drained from Jasqatin's face, and he appeared very stern.

"Don't _ever_ question me again."


	5. V

**V**

** Iziz **

At some point during any and every mission there comes a time when your imperfections surface to haunt you. Occasionally this gets you into big trouble, like death for instance. But this time it was a bit less severe than that, though whether or not it worked in my favor I've yet to decide.

Every professional soldier gets it eventually: it's that dreamlike state that exists only in the void, the abysm that's adrift somewhere between sleep and consciousness. Some call it Limbo or Trance. I call it Absolution.

Hovenn, with the superstitious nonsense I'm sure he believes, would probably deign to call it something else entirely. One can assume that snipers experience it a lot more often than we, um, brutal ground folk, though nobody I know of has ever had the audacity to speak of it. Trade secrets—you know how it is.

But I digress.

Whether it's before or during the actual combat, it always comes when you're waiting, inactive, for whatever reason. It's either the calm before the storm or its ever-deceptive eye. It descends upon you, slowly, like a drug, creeping, taking its time. It oozes. Of course it's one of those things that you don't know has hit you until you break free of it.

When you first encounter it, the feeling will only exacerbate your tensions, heighten the degree of your battle anxieties. The fear of the unknown becomes insufferable: men have gone mad from it and afterwards diagnosed with something as simple as "trauma." But that's only in the beginning. The true warrior can harness it for themselves, feed on its power while they sit.

We welcome it, we few who fight for the glory of Helghan. It's just another side-effect of the body's reaction to stress, and we know that all too well. It's not a bother but a brother. Another weapon in our sack of anti-ISA implements. It wouldn't surprise me if it stems from some dubious chemical pumped into our bloodstream through our breather masks, a gift from Scolar Visari. But I must insist that I embrace it nonetheless.

I've digressed again.

Perhaps now I'll clarify my excessive details with yet another tangent. Everyone has some piece of advice from their parents that they can recall in a heartbeat for the duration of their otherwise monotonous lives. Mine was from my father, who urged me to skip the preambles I always seemed to give before getting to the point of a conversation.

Pity I didn't listen.

So you're waiting. Scanning the faces of your squad-mates sitting across from you as they ready their jump cables beneath the drone of the drop ship's engines. Whatever. There's an either wanted or unwanted sensation that overcomes you, like I said. It's like a kind of mental state I think. Now that I'm so used to it, that's what I feel. It's _surreal_. Reality melts all around you, drips away. Sound and sight fade into echoes that blur as if you were many miles away from the action around you. Time slows, and your mind becomes sluggish. But your thoughts become pure and serene—I often see myself slaying many an ISA. Strangely enough, you feel able, ready to wage war.

You feel invincible.

I'm… not sure if I can describe it to you any better than that, especially since at this point in my brief reverie (in which I once again tapped into Absolution) something was beginning to happen, and I emerged from it much faster than it had arrived. Like drowning in a vast sea of dreaming, then resurfacing. You want to stay, but you know you can't. You have things to do. But you needn't worry. You'll be back.

"Iziz! ISA!" From somewhere and someone came those hazy but familiar words. After a great deal more time than normal I deduced that the first was my name: I was being addressed. The second wasn't really a word, but a string of letters that, when concatenated and thrust forcefully into my ear and brain, brought about a frighteningly sudden sentiment of detest and aggression.

I don't have time to try and remember precisely why that is, I just have time to remember one thing. My primal instincts have formed a simple equation since my inception into the Third Army of Helghan, a mental construct that remains the most distinct monument of my memory. A monolith in the midst of the chaotic razorstorms that are my thoughts. It will not deteriorate.

_ISA equals enemy. _In response, I prepared myself and my weapon accordingly.

And so ends the beloved preamble.

\\ \\ \\

I heard the supply truck trundling loudly towards us long before I saw it, although I doubt it worked the same way for Hovenn. We'd both had plenty of time to clean and repair our weapons in the day or so since we'd gotten our new orders, and Hovenn spent most of that time tinkering with his sniper scope's optics. Fussy, fussy, you snipers, I'd told him. He said he preferred to call it meticulous affection.

Bunch of spooks if you ask me, but then again none of them have ever spoken to me without prompting before, excluding Hovenn. They are a secluded, yet deadly breed. Though I fail to understand them in most aspects of their behavior, none can refute their flawless efficiency in the field.

During our preparation period allotted to us by Command, we'd also managed to formulate a plan for reaching Hakha, who we all, including Command, assumed had returned to Vekta since his trip to the SD platform.

In scouring the area outside the forest (which itself is on the periphery of the ISA headquarters and Vekta City) for ammunition and anything else that might help us in the upcoming mission, we came across a derelict ISA communications shack. Upon further investigation, it became obvious that the outpost had been highly contested before being abandoned by our allies in their retreat. Bodies and bullet casings were scattered about the vicinity, but insofar as we could tell it had not yet been reoccupied by ISA forces.

I managed to enter the ISA's radio network from the outpost's equipment and we became enlightened as to their current objectives.

From what we gathered a massive rearming operation has been taking place for the local ISA base, which had been completely overrun by our forces. Troops and armaments have been making their way through space and over land to the base, including the fleet of warships from Earth which have stationed themselves in orbit around the planet. The space where the SD platform once stood so recently is even more congested now, bristling with defenses, and of course cluttered with debris.

It is difficult for us to accept that the lifeblood of our first assault on Vekta rested in taking aide from a sympathetic human like General Adams. Not to mention learning of Hakha's defection. Trust is just a game to be played in times of war, and the biggest, strongest shields from besiegement are not those composed of sand-bags or metal, but those built of carefully-constructed lies. Traitors are dirty, filthy things.

Along with the information pertaining to the Vekta resupply op, I was able to download topographical information through a separate channel of comms and map troop and supply movements taking place all across the continent, almost all of which were headed in our direction. Trucks with both soldiers and weapons were routinely passing through our area every half hour, and after observing their paths and speeds a few times to prepare an ambush, we decided we were ready.

The plan was simple enough: commandeer an ISA-affiliated transport, infiltrate the compound once again, and find and eliminate (former) Third Army Chief of Staff Gregor Hakha. Our orders did not specifically require us to survive the ordeal although they mentioned the possibility of extracting us by drop ship transport eventually. It was just unsettling enough for us to have difficulty putting it out of our minds, but neither would have time to really worry about it until later.

"Two thousand yards," that seemingly far-off voice whispered.

The truck was getting closer, and louder. Hovenn announced his scope readouts of its distance every few seconds and by my calculations it was right on track at its usual thunderous pace of forty-five miles per hour. Mentally, I checked my breathing and heart rate: all green, at least for my combat standards, which were always a bit lower than the Helghast norm, or so I had been told by a military physician many years ago.

"Fifteen-hundred yards."

Hovenn's respirations were of course noticeably silent, and gradually I also strove to create the same effect. I ejected the cylindrical magazine for my LAR quietly and reattached it with that satisfying _clack_, placating some of my pre-firefight paranoia that at least something was in passable working condition. The rest of the assault rifle's performance I would have to trust to my own abilities, and the quality of good ol' Helghan engineering. The two had never failed me before, so why start doubting them now?

"One thousand yards. You ready, Iz?"

I couldn't help but smile, despite my apprehension. "Always am, hotshot. You just worry about those ISA heads you're supposed to make explode."

"Wilco. Stand by for an unsightly case of ISA hemorrhaging_._"

Hovenn's tone was, as usual, utterly without inflection. As much as I hate to admit it, he's the real pro when it comes to composure. Once again, I sought to copy his style and become just that much better a soldier. A warrior.

I was crouched down with my back against a large boulder. Hovenn had climbed a tree about fifty yards away at the edge of a small copse, deep within which our jetbikes idly sat. Otherwise trees were scarce as far as the eye could see, one reaching, scratching at the sky purposelessly every hundred yards or so. The terrain was mostly flat, with only the gentlest slopes and some oddly-formed trenches that appeared to be dry riverbeds of eons past. The grass was sparse and a prickly yellow color, with dirt accompanying its eternal sweating from Vekta's sun high above. A pair of tire tracks ran right between Hovenn and me, and we had witnessed earlier trucks following them almost religiously.

"Five hundred yards."

I risked a glance to my chronometer readout in the corner of my goggles. This particular delivery was a few minutes ahead of schedule, but it was of little importance since Hovenn and I had set up at our respective positions over an hour beforehand. I bounced up and down on my legs in my crouched position, trying to shake my muscles to readiness.

"Three hundred fifty yards. Wait for my countdown and command…"

It was time. No aborting now, since we'd planned to give us only enough time to do this once in compliance with our operational parameters. The truck was so close now that I could see the dust it kicked up in my peripheral vision. It was so much louder than a minute ago, like the pounding of war drums in my head. I closed my eyes.

Through my mouth I exhaled carefully to further calm myself but without making any noise. I sidled over to the side of the rock opposite the direction of the truck's point of origin. I waited for what seemed like hours.

Hovenn's countdown almost came as a surprise. For some reason I could never imagine us going through with such a covert insertion like this, especially just the two of us alone so far into enemy territory. _Here goes,_ I thought. For the pride of our forefathers, right? I quickly lapsed into the rhythm of my compatriot's voice.

** Hovenn **

"Two hundred yards… five… four…"

In those final seconds my brain seemed to lose grip with reality. Time slowed down, as it always does when I enter that sniper mode of thought.

"…three…"

It was like I was dreaming—watching someone else taking a sniper shot at a fast-moving vehicle from a tree. The mission was suddenly of little importance, and the truck approached with grim inevitability. My own voice sounded like it was completely detached. Sounds became absurd in their range of decibels—some were too loud, others were so soft that I thought I felt them like pinpricks more than I actually heard them with my ears, my senses. Everything was very cloudy in that moment.

"…two…"

My vision was just as humorous as my hearing, appearing black and white to me, but I knew that couldn't really be true. My mind contended otherwise, but some distant part of me knew. It was amber. It had been amber for as long as I could remember.

"…one…"

Time froze, like so many ISA did in horror when they saw one of my bullets cut through one of their squad mates. The truck was in full view now and I assumed Iziz was in position. I had to. I waited, the truck's approach maddeningly, demonically slow now, until the driver's head behind the cockpit's left window slid into the spot I had preprogrammed onto my reticle layout earlier that day.

For the first time in a day, I fired, and felt the kick of my rifle slam into me, shoving me in turn against the tree's trunk behind me. It was almost comforting.

The effects reaped by a sniper bullet are never very short of severity.

Time sped back up again, smoothly and rapidly, and the bullet wasted no time in drilling a large, propagating hole in the ISA's left temple. The driver slumped instantly down over the steering wheel, his face grossly deformed and leaking a conglomerate of fluids. The windows were now spattered with gore, and luckily the deceased driver had been alone in the truck's forward cabin.

I heard a tiny peripheral sound to my right far below the tree's canopy. After a brief moment I realized it was the ejected shell casing thudding lightly into the dirt at the base of the tree. My senses were on their absolute knife edge. Typical of us Helghast in times of war.

The truck auto-braked hard, its online systems detecting the driver's absence of a heartbeat, and it quickly slowed in a gently curving line in the dirt, kicking dust into the wind. Without my consent, my breathing recommenced audibly as the truck came to a stop, now about fifty yards away from my position.

Through my sniper scope and my ears I struggled to find movement or any stirring within the truck's aft compartment, which undoubtedly held about half a dozen living troops inside. After a few seconds I could hear the voices of the ISA guarding the truck's supplies, but by that time Iziz has crept up to the truck, kneeling against the right side, his LAR trained in the direction of the truck's aft door.

Seconds ticked. I found my heart was pumping at a slightly accelerated rate. I moved my reticle around the truck almost frantically, searching for something to kill, for the mission to continue as planned, and finally, after an unbearable minute of nothing, I was relieved.

The aft doors of the truck burst open and I saw three heads pop out into the open air of my sights immediately. I stifled my respirations and targeted the nearest of them, but hesitated to fire when I saw a brilliant flash of light through the scope and felt the land rumble beneath me.

Iziz had thought ahead and detonated a grenade just behind the truck. He must have been listening to the ISAs' conversation inside the truck's bay, priming and cooking the grenade while they prepared a counter-ambush, while still knowing so little of our carefully-concocted plot.

Demure as usual, these ISA.

Smoke materialized in a quick flurry behind the truck, and I heard the muffled shouts of the ISAs amidst the booming din of the grenade blast. A tiny but noticeable shockwave shook the tree I sat in and I just barely lost my balance in my tight crouching stance.

It wasn't much, but it was enough to force me to grab for the trunk with my left hand, yanking my head away from the scope for just a second in the process.

"_Shit!"_ I hissed, and stabilized myself in an almost embarrassing frenzy of movement. I brought my face back up to the scope as fast as I could, desperately scanning for the combat scene at hand, for the back of the open truck.

As soon as I found it again, I saw that three more ISA had emerged from the truck, quizzically looking for the man who had just murdered their friends. My mind was racing like a train wreck. I sighted the nearest of them again, and fired quickly without thinking it through properly.

The ISA yelled like so many of the lacerated that had come before him to Vekta and dropped to one knee. I had caught him on the left quadricep, an egregiously poor shot for my standards.

For some reason I balked instantaneously right then, just enough to watch the wounded ISA say something to his comrades and point up and in my direction. A truly fatal error on my part. Angrily I made him pay with a much more calculated shot to the left side of the chest that sent him sprawling to the ground in a vortex of pain and blood loss.

One of the two remaining ISA opened fire with his own assault rifle, his bullets peppering and embedding themselves in the great trunk of the tree all around me. Splintered bark obscured my vision and sprayed across my heavily garmented body. In a fear I had not experienced before I scrambled along the branch, flattening myself in an attempt to decrease my observability. I clung for my life and at the same time cursed myself profusely for the pathetic accuracy of the previous shot's placement.

After two excruciatingly long, yet fortunate seconds the automatic weapon's firing ceased. I found myself unharmed, yet intensely curious as to the condition of the ISA who had stopped firing. Looking up from the tree, I saw the ISA's dead husk of a body hit the ground. I could tell even from that distance that his back was riddled with tiny holes which seeped blood. Iziz had popped the ISA with his LAR's shotgun attachment at point blank.

Then everything went hauntingly quiet. I could hear Iziz grunting in an odd way over the commlink, along with the deranged voice of an ISA in the background.

Again I pushed myself back towards the trunk with an urgency filled with the strange fright I was experiencing. Futilely trying to relax, I once more took aim at the vicinity of the truck, which was mostly clear of the grenade's smoke now.

It was also lacking people. The former combatants were mysteriously absent, save for the multitude of rotting corpses just outside the truck. _Iziz_, I wondered, _where the hell are you?!_

Shortly thereafter, my inquiry was resolved as two bodies appeared from the far side of the truck. The last remaining ISA had apparently snuck around to Iziz's side and seized him from behind. Iziz's back bent backwards as the ISA held him violently with a knife to his throat, the blade glistening in the midday sunlight, his seething fury utterly palpable.

"I know you're out there somewhere, damn it, now _show yourself!"_ The ISA evidently didn't know my exact location and twisted his head around frenetically. In his desperate festering he seemed incredibly nervous, his breathing extremely hard and erratic. His face, though untouched, was already the color of blood.

The ISA was giving me an opportunity to redeem myself of my ignominious blunder by unwittingly committing one of his own. I praised the grace of Scolar Visari and took aim at his forehead, which in my line of sight fell just above my comrade's helmet. I would not allow myself to miss this time.

"I've got your pal here, your chum! I'll cut his fucking _neck_, you piece of—"

A swift round to the appointed area silenced the ISA in mid-sentence. Iziz sprang forward from the dead man's grip, some of the ISA's blood falling onto him in the process. After a moment of scanning the truck's proximity, Iziz gave the all-clear signal, and I carefully descended the tree, finally able to calm down.

When I reached Iziz he looked much like I did: exhausted after possibly the most intense three-minute firefight we'd ever participated in. "Nice work, man," he said, smiling somewhere behind his breather mask. He knew of my mistake, though we both consciously decided to only speak of it later. I returned his sentiment of congratulations, and he slapped me on the back and took a deep breath. "Well, let's get this baby cleaned up before we get too far behind schedule, eh?"

His comment made me glance at my chronometer readout. "Actually, I think we did just fine, all things considered. But now for phase two." We started for the truck when we saw someone entering the clearing on foot. Both of us instinctively brought our rifles to bear, fearing another hostile that we had somehow missed. Whoever he was, he looked unarmed and seemed to be fending off a battle wound that made his stride a bit weak and uneven.

But the impossible, the unthinkable was indeed happening.

We lowered our weapons as a lone Helghast survivor of the previous day's battles approached us. _A straggler left behind from the evacuation? How could that have happened? Could there be more?_

Questions besieged us but we found we were both too stunned to speak. Instead, instinct took over again, despite our fatigue, and we snapped to attention and offered the unknown man a crisp salute. For this man was no ordinary Helghast.

He was a Helghast elite.


	6. VI

**VI**

The elite never returned our salute.

He paid the two of us no mind as he trudged over to the truck, using it to support himself. He barely made it all the way there on his own, clutching the right side of his rib cage with bloodied gloves, breathing laboriously. Not knowing what else to do, Iziz and I both abandoned our attempt at maintaining the chain of command in the field and rushed to help him.

"Leave me be, boys, I'm just damn fine where I am, thank you."

We stopped suddenly, in total shock at his words, and gave him some room. The throaty tinge in his already angry voice made him seem belligerent enough to spit venom at us if he could. His uniform's name band read 'Vaksa.' He was no doubt a platoon commander from General Lente's Third Army.

We looked at each other, clueless. Iziz stepped up and spoke. "Are you sure you're all right, sir—"

"And just what the _fuck_ are you gonna do about it, huh?" Iziz dropped his outstretched hand, defeated.

"Look around, _fools,_" he continued. "There's not a Helghast-occupied military base left _on this planet!_" He paused, catching his breath and shifting his weight between legs."I was able to find a discarded medkit on my egress from the fortress, but stopping the external bleeding'll only do half the bloody job. I think I've ruptured at least one major organ."

Wanting to be the good soldier like I'd been taught, I tried to push through his post-battle emotions in spite of them. I unclipped my personal canteen and started to offer it to him. "Here, just drink some of this—"

"Are you both fucking deaf?!" He eyed us incredulously, with an indignation that almost stung and seared our flesh. "No, no you're just blinded by Visari's nonsense, that's all." He started to tear off his goggles, enraged.

"Look at you, oblivious. Well let me help you out: WE FUCKING LOST! Our _comrades_ have already gotten the hell out of here and left us for dead! Now, please, tell me what good drinking a quart of water will do when I've sustained massive injuries that require _immediate surgical attention!_"

Vaksa leant back onto the truck, staring right through me with eyes that burned like daggers. I looked into them and realized I was seeing the same hatred that fueled the Helghast cause, just directed at a different entity. The truth to what he was saying started to sink in, to accrue on my mind against my will. _But there _isn't_ any truth to what he's saying… right? _

I glanced at Iziz and saw that the thoughts running through his head must have been far different from mine, for he seemed to be building up a fury of his own at the elite's heresy. Noticing this, Vaksa turned his attention to Iziz, deciding to toy with his feelings, apparently having nothing better to do.

Vaksa smiled sadistically and chose his words slowly. "Fuck Helghan. _Screw_ Visari and his godforsaken _crusade_!" Afterwards, satisfied, he coughed and moved his gaze elsewhere, folding his arms across his torso.

At this remark, Iziz was seething palpably. I watched him and felt that I knew what he was thinking. Almost expecting what was coming next, I stood still only half-surprised when Iziz dropped his rifle and lunged for Vaksa all in one quick, calculated movement. But what I didn't predict was Vaksa's response.

Without hardly moving, Vaksa fired his concealed Tropov and caught Iziz right in the midsection. The moment flashed into reality as my ally was powered backwards by the force of the bullet, thrashing and crying out.

Vaksa took up a stance for accurate weapon-discharging as Iziz tumbled to the ground a few yards away from the truck, eventually coming to rest in a heap. "This is for your own good, son." With that, Vaksa took aim and was about to squeeze off another shot when I seized the opportunity. He was holding his pistol with only his right hand, his left still tending to the wounds on his right side. I was on his left, and saw my window open. Forsaking all moral judgment, I knew what I had to do.

It was only just after I had closed some of the nearly negligible gap between us that I withdrew my combat knife instinctively. Vaksa seemed to take notice of my approach only just before my blade dug into his flesh. Swiftly, frantically, I brought it up to his neck and swept across it towards his spinal cord. His eyes never had time to register any feelings of surprise or dread that may have befallen his brain.

Vaksa spun around from the force of the blow and spattered blood onto the side of the truck. His body crumpled to the ground beside my feet, dead, his gun still in hand.

Iziz's anguished screams brought me back to the present. My thoughts snapped back into existence and I tried to understand with horror what had just transpired, what atrocious actions I had just committed.

"Hovenn! Get out of here, now! Finish the mission!"

I was only barely able to shake my stare away from the Helghast elite, one of my own comrades, who lay dead by my hand.

"Iziz…" I said hesitantly, in complete disbelief. "Iziz, what the hell just happened?" Terror reached me to its fullest extent as I found that I knew the answer to what I had just asked. _I just killed another Helghast. A virtual superior what's more. But it couldn't possibly be really happening, could it?_

"Forget about it, damn it, and forget about me for now! Just don't let Vaksa win!" Iziz grunted and winced in pain, struggling to push his words out. I wanted to concentrate on the importance of what he was saying but his voice merely droned and echoed in the background of the moment uselessly. "Get to Hakha and finish the job before it's too late!"

The spoken name of my quarry jolted me like the recoil of a Siska cannon. I tried fiercely to shake off my new uncertainties, but Vaksa's mocking image laughed harder at me in my mind even as I tore my view away from his lifeless hulk.

My temples throbbed. My hands shook. I gritted my teeth and _willed _myself to wake up, hoping this was all a hideous nightmare. It certainly seemed absurd and outrageous enough to be one, considering the circumstances. _Helghan have mercy on my soul, for I have sinned. _Talk about an understatement. My world was on fire and spiraling out of control.

Amidst a storm of dread, I assessed the situation to the best of my concurrent abilities. Iziz would probably live long enough for us to get off Vekta, assuming the mission went as planned and our evac craft actually came for us. I didn't know how that part was going to work out but I had to believe that it would. Hearing Vaksa's words trapped in my mind with deafening clarity didn't make it any easier.

The knowledge of my environmental surroundings slowly began to return as I gathered my bearings, and I noticed with trepidation that the sky in the direction of the ISA headquarters looked a strange yellow-brown color, like sand. Dust swirled through the air, and a callous wind whipped at my face, appearing seemingly from nowhere.

Skeptically, I wiped the truck down and opened the door to the driver's cockpit, wondering which of the Helghast lying on the ground nearby was more the righteous.


	7. VII

**PART THREE**

**A L T E R A T I O N S**

**VII**

Vastok made a point of reentering the wardroom right on time: not a second too early or late. Jasqatin stood in almost the same spot as before, behind a smooth, ebony table which dominated the room's volume. He was alone now except for Vastok, leaning on the table with both hands, staring down at some large documents under the light of a single lamp. They looked as if they had just been unrolled, all very official. Doubtless, Jasqatin was aware of Vastok's presence.

He stopped at the opposite end of the table, deciding to break the silence from something of a distance. "So tell me: what in Visari's name is it you've got up your sleeve, General?"

Jasqatin removed his attention from the documents and stood up straight. The entire wall of the wardroom behind the General was transparent: an enormous viewing window with Vekta just a tiny point of green at the edge of focus. Stars shone through the glass very well without the room's main lighting systems turned on, and Jasqatin's slightly silhouetted figure was made to look all the more profound.

His face was stern again, almost as much as it had been when Vastok left the room just a few hours before. "Control yourself, Colonel. I certainly do hope I made myself clear the last time we spoke. I will tolerate exactly none of your insubordination. Understand?" His eyes burned with what Vastok thought might be a Helghast's desire for retribution.

Vastok decided it best to play this one safer than the last time they had met. "Acknowledged, sir. I apologize for my behavior. I don't condone your superiority to me in any way, however I must politely insist that you—"

"Save it, Colonel. I'll sate your anxiety in just a moment. Besides, you're in no position to _insist_ upon anything, especially not to me. If you weren't such a good friend of mine I'd have had court-martialed you years ago for that attitude of yours. Now, to business." He gestured at the papers on the table, and Vastok approached them curiously.

The uppermost document was a detailed schematic of at first glance what appeared to be a high-tech contraption of some sort. The text that labeled the drawing was incredibly small, some of it with alphanumeric sequences and scientific terminology Vastok couldn't readily understand. He doubted even the General knew what some of the jargon meant.

"I'm… not sure I understand what I'm looking at, sir."

"What? Never seen a blueprint before?" Jasqatin said jokingly, his mood lightening somewhat. He was actually smiling for the first time in Vastok's recent memory. Whatever it was he had going on behind the scenes was definitely pleasing him, and the fact that only the two of them alone were apparently going to know about it might have been one of the things that was making him so happy.

"Look a little closer; I'm sure you can figure something out. Tell me what you're thinking."

Vastok leaned his torso over the table and squinted in the dim lighting. He read aloud a few of the text labels, the ones he could even comprehend and pronounce. "Enriched and compressed plutonium… electrical synapses with a wireless digital uplink… Rigel… it looks to be some type of weapon. But according to these scales, it's absurdly small given its yield."

"I knew you could do it, Heisenberg. As you know, we were short on time during our occupation, and of course during our retreat. We'd planned to install multiple devices like this one in a systematic array around the ISA headquarters, but alas, we simply couldn't accomplish this given that "we," our techs designated to be protected while they planted the Rigels _and_ their protectors, were all dead or gone by then."

Vastok was beginning to see what Jasqatin was saying take form. All the same, he met his superior's gaze with incredulity, appearing mildly offended. "So what _is_ all this? Failure insurance, General? That's just not like you."

"Careful, Colonel…" Jasqatin growled, his temper resurfacing.

"Sorry, sir. Again, my deepest apologies." Vastok took a deep breath realizing he would have to better control his statements if he wanted to keep his friend's trust. "But with all due respect, that post-op sniper mission, this plan B fail-safe… well, I guess I'm simply wondering "why," sir. Why would you think these were necessary before we even began the invasion? And furthermore why didn't you tell anyone?"

"Secrecy is necessary sometimes, Colonel," Jasqatin answered, his tone that of a teacher speaking to an innocent pupil. "Lente knew I had my ambitions, but he would never have let them come to fruition while he was in command. I'm sure he had his own agenda to which very few or perhaps solely he was privy. That's just the way this institution works: ambitious, paranoid old bastards playing a never-ending complex game of behind-the-back plans and deals, the political and strategic intricacies of which often fool even the best players themselves." He scowled at his last remark, grunting with moderate indignation. "Welcome to Helghan, I suppose."

This was all news to Vastok, who was listening intently and finally doing well to maintain his façade of impassiveness. "Yes, well that answers my second question quite suitably, but…"

Jasqatin cut in on him again, his voice surprisingly plaintive. "Well to answer your first, Colonel, I'll tell you the truth: I just didn't think the numbers added up quite right. I'll admit I did have good faith in our men when in one-on-one bouts with ISA, aside from those four special forces operatives that induced the SD platform fiasco. But my gut told me it just didn't look good, especially after trusting a sympathetic human from the other side. But hey, that was all Lente's grand scheme, not mine after all."

"Mm. Too true, General."

Jasqatin returned his attention to the schematic. "Given the time constraints, only one Rigel was successfully activated before everything went sideways." He took the topmost document off the table, revealing another of the same size, though this one was a topological graphic of the facility in bird's eye view. A dozen or so red dots surrounded the premises.

"Ideally, there would have been ten or fifteen to completely eradicate the base and its occupants, should the need for such desperation ever arise."

"But the ISA are reoccupying the facility as we speak. It shouldn't be too long before they find the Rigel, don't you think?"

"Nonsense, Colonel. Don't be so droll." Undoubtedly the General was now enjoying himself a little more than usual. "You presume me to be shallow of cunning, but I assure you I am not.

"We had it buried a few feet underground, which better explains why it took more than a little effort to put into position. Granted, that won't stop the ISA from discovering it indefinitely by any means, and obviously one detonation of that size will likely only take out about a tenth of the facility _at best_, but it's better than nothing for sure. And yet it still doesn't really matter either way because we can control its detonation remotely from here."

"And what of your precious sniper… sir?"

"You of all people should know that one soldier, no matter how skilled, is expendable, especially in these dire circumstances." He pointed to a red dot on the map that was on the headquarters' far west side. "But it seems the Rigel that's now in place is on the other side of the headquarters from where Hakha's supposed to be stationed during the day, according to intel, so it's unlikely either of them will be killed by a one-kiloton blast from over a mile away. Good thing, too. Wouldn't want to spoil a perfectly good traitor hunt without exceptional reason, eh Colonel?"

"Absolutely not, sir," Vastok said, further placating Jasqatin's brief term of contentedness. "And just how deep did you say this bomb is buried again?"

"One fathom, or thereabouts. Probably less since the techs were cut down on time. It's truly a beautiful technological feat, cramming that much exploding punch into a cube the size of a lunchbox. Even with the nuclear ingredients necessary it cost us practically nothing in the end. But wait," he said, stopping. His facial expression shifted from his blithe demeanor to an almost worried disposition, and he now eyed Vastok suspiciously. "Why do you ask?"

Vastok had been checking his personal computer while Jasqatin was reminiscing and now looked between it and the General, frowning. "Well it's just that I'm getting reports from our weather-sats that there's inclement and abnormal developments brewing on Vekta at the moment, and it all seems to be forming right there on the peninsula, just south of the ISA base. Here, take a look and see for yourself." He set the laptop on the table and slid it over to Jasqatin.

Mouth somewhat agape as he read, the General said "You've got to be kidding… I mean a _sandstorm_? What are the odds?" Vastok started to open his mouth to respond but Jasqatin continued. "On second thought don't answer that. But this sure is rare, isn't it?"

"'Fraid so, General," Vastok replied matter-of-factly. "Checks out for a fairly extreme sandstorm at that. It's no doubt very uncommon, even on a new and as of yet mostly uncultivated planet like Vekta, but when one reviews the meteorological data from the past few days the conditions are evident as to suggest its approach." He grinned himself, remembering the torrents of rain and wind that he and all Helghast children had grown up with. "Reminds me of home."

"Yes, I'd have to agree, Colonel, on both counts." He sighed, crossing his arms somewhat dejectedly. "Looks like the powers that be are bumping us ahead of schedule after all."

The two comrades watched silently for a few more moments in the relative darkness of the wardroom as the storm swept inexorably north towards the ISA headquarters. Eventually Jasqatin moved to the giant window beside them, pressing his fists lightly against the only barrier the wardroom had against the cold blackness and void of space beyond. His old eyes settled on the pinprick of light that he knew was Vekta, wondering rather futilely whether his favorite boy was somehow going to make it back alive.

He almost hoped he would.


	8. VIII

**VIII**

As the airborne dust from the storm began to settle, night descended as well. It came first in bright, almost sanguine shades—oranges and pinks (as if Vekta's sun was being born, not dying) that were merely the precursor for malign scarlets and bruised purples.

I thought I had around an hour before the cycle completed itself and blackness fell over the world. Pushing westward in the stolen supply truck, I felt I had something of a front row seat for the show when I first noticed the peaks and pinnacles of the ISA headquarters rising into view.

I could just make out the highest towers where the other snipers and I had been just days ago. The sight of them again so soon, and with such a climactic backdrop of sunset made the scene breach the line between eerie and downright disturbing. The knowledge that my quarry lay somewhere within those walls was equally unnerving.

I'd been driving in a straight line for several hours, occasionally passing some foothills or another copse of tall, bare trees native to the rocky, desolate landscape that surrounded the ISA base. All the while I'd been suffering one monstrous headache induced by the agony of choice, and had been pervaded by an inescapable nausea from the thick odor of blood and brains from the driver I'd shot earlier, despite having cleaned the majority of the congealing fluids off the interior windows.

I supposed this was just another of Nature's gifts for the incalculable deaths I'd caused without the slightest consideration, much less hesitation. Stewing in the primordial remains of my most recent victim, I couldn't help but feel a forbidding scrutiny, something bordering on punishment. I felt the driver's screwed-up face watching me, but every time I looked over to his seat, the image vanished, as if he was only extant at my periphery.

It wasn't one of those ghoulish presences that laughs at you with a maddening grin in your nightmares; the phantom just lingered there, neither dead nor alive, his face grotesquely tarnished beyond repair. He might as well have been headless.

_Why?_ The ghost whispered into my ear. His tone was sad, weighed down by regret. The one-word question lurked through the truck's cockpit, slowly fading from reach. But its palpability wouldn't leave the air it permeated.

I tried desperately to recall my disposing of his corpse upon entering the vehicle for the first time many hours before. Somehow I couldn't.

I _must_ be going crazy.

Or… was I finally drifting _away_ from insanity?

My excuse: _It was me or you. You had something I needed so I took it._ The words oozed and dripped in and out of clarity, neither thoughts nor speech. I think my corporeal brain was somewhere else entirely.

_Sounds simple enough,_ he replied.

Silence followed for several minutes thereafter. The ISA base was well under a half-hour away, quickly nearing total separation from any sunlight. The timing was nearly perfect for an undercover op.

_Please, go on your way,_ I said. _I've items of importance to attend to and have little patience left to continue chatting with my anthropomorphized guilt. _I tried to speak, or think, confidently, hoping to ward off this irksome personification by denouncing it, as if any of this conversation was actually happening.

_I'm not your guilt, _came the flat-toned whisper. Another agonizingly long, drawn-out moment stretched between us and finally passed before he clarified his vague statement.

_I… am just… your fear…_

With these words the apparition departed, and I found myself alone again, accompanied only by that relentlessly pungent ichor and the truck's quiet rumbling.

\\ \\ \\

Within minutes I was arriving at the entrance to the supply trucks' processing area.

In those last few moments before I would have to concentrate only on the mission at hand I thought of Iziz. I'd left him shot and bleeding on the dirt-ridden ground, left to die for all I know and the only rationale I had to back myself up was that he had been the one to tell me to go. I couldn't help but see flashes of him, that last image of him writhing and shouting at me. My best friend was quite likely dead by now, after enduring an indescribable and excruciatingly painful struggle. But he had _ordered_ me to leave him.

Now, so far from the cogency of his booming voice, it sounded like an awfully weak argument. I shook his very probable death out of my mind.

Two wide-open metal gates the size of houses admitted me, and I needed only to slow the truck's speed to officially infiltrate what was widely renowned as the largest and most densely protected ISA fortress on the planet.

Gearing myself up mentally, I followed signs and turned onto a driveway that eventually lead into a large warehouse standing among many other buildings of a similar type. The garage doors yawned open into a row of identical trucks lined up against a catwalk and a loading dock. Large circular lights hung from the vaulted ceiling cables, buzzing faintly. Forklifts sat unattended, some very near the trucks they had undoubtedly been unloading some time before. But no sign of any employees or soldiers.

Something was very wrong. My only hope was that its wrongness would tilt in my favor.

I slotted the truck into the leftmost available space and shut off the engine. The sudden absence of the truck's noisy droning made my heart skip a beat. I calmed myself and searched the area once more before hopping lightly out of the vehicle.

The dimly lit hangar was in fact devoid of activity. I gently shut the truck's door and just stood perfectly still outside the cockpit for a few minutes, listening.

The reserved ticking of truck engines cooling off. The clumsy movements of some stray insects around the lights. Save these, there was no sound in the immediate vicinity, but after a few seconds my ears had adjusted to the silence more fully and I could just make out the irregular voice pattern of a distant conversation. Several hallways and corridors snaked away from the loading dock and the catwalk. I surmised the voice originated from the former and moved slowly towards the nearest ladder.

_Shit,_ I thought, sneaking onto the platform around towards the corridor. _I'm not James frigging Bond I'm just a sniper!_ But despite my ineptitude, I felt competent in the fact that I hadn't _yet_ made any fatal errors. I supposed that had to count for something.

Midway down the corridor, which connected two processing areas with some offices, I found the origin of the noise. I watched the shadow of an ISA employee play across the wall opposite the office window where he sat, talking over a phone. I crouched in the embrace of the relative darkness, hidden in a corner. I still had to struggle to hear anything coherent in the conversation, but I dared not move any closer to the window.

Something big was going on. The man seemed to be talking to another ISA at a different part of the base. That must be where all the other people had gone. It was my lucky break: as long as I didn't stumble across wherever the distraction was occurring I could slip through the facility's defenses without nearly as much trouble as before. I wondered morosely if Hakha would even be at his putative dormitory, considering the occasion. _Shit,_ I thought again.

Not wanting to waste time, I crept back to the garage behind me, hearing the voice once again fade back into inaudibility. From what I'd gathered at the weapons shack the day before, my mental map of the compound was limited but sufficient. Hakha's dormitory lay on the eastern edge of a central ring of buildings, which meant I had to move further west before I'd be able to recognize his barracks by eye and then enter them unseen.

After checking my sniper rifle over one last time—a ritual I simply could not leave uncompleted, superstitious or not—I slung it back over my shoulder and unclipped my pistol from its hip holster. It felt good to load it myself, feeling the magazine slide into place and hearing the satisfying _clack_ of cocking it.

I took a few breaths through my nose in solitude, easing my heart rate down as I liked to do for no reason other than the fact that it seemed to make me feel more comfortable. Then I stepped out of the hangar doors and into the night.

Far to the west, on the other side of the base, I could barely see the tops of huge floodlamps through an alley between buildings. There were at least a half dozen of the lights, all on towering mounts and arranged in a rough circle from which the distant aural transmissions of people and machines made their way to my ears.

The lamps looked like the sort that were used to illuminate a massive outdoor excavation. Whatever was going on there, it must have been what was deterring the ISA from their regular duties. I had my own ideas as to what exactly was happening beneath those hot lights, but I stuffed them down knowing it wouldn't make any difference. In times of war and stress, nearly everything once thought pertinent becomes extraneous.

Thanking the auspicious incident vigorously, I oriented myself onto a western vector and melted into the shadows.


	9. IX

**IX**

Darkness had finished falling and was oppressing the base like a constrictor as I warily traversed the last few hundred yards to Hakha's sector of the headquarters.

In my transit, the noise from the direction of the dig site had gradually become louder as I neared its location, despite never coming very close to the actual site. I'd had to double back and reroute when I came to the occasional intersection graced by the presence of a few rebellious ISA doing a poor job of a routine patrol of the area. They seldom moved or talked, and when they did it was the voices of drained spirits I overheard—understandable given the fact that the entire base had been a hive of activity and influx of supplies for the last few days, not to mention the Helghast siege they had been forced to weather.

Maybe I was imagining it, but beneath my stoic veil of total readiness I too felt the tug of sleep trying to drag me under. I certainly hoped I was imagining it, lest Scolar Visari find out and condemn me a weakling, unfit to defend the glory of Helghan much less level a rifle at the enemy.

I shrugged it all away and remembered my training. Visari didn't really give a shit about me anyway.

I crossed the last wide street to the barracks, shadow hiding me as I hurried through the spilled sand and blood of yesterday's battles. All the bodies had been cleared away but detritus still cluttered the vicinity. I wondered which pool of crimson liquid belonged to my countrymen and which to the enemy, but soon found I could not make the distinction.

The double doors before me bore nondescript square windows through which light poured dully from a small lobby. Hakha would likely be on the second floor, according to intel, and I crouched beside one door, peering in discreetly for a full minute. Nothing visibly or audibly stirred within.

Again that nagging gut feeling that something was horribly wrong. I slumped back quietly, knowing that this could be my last moment of solitude before chaos erupted. Or maybe Hakha knew I was coming and would just get it over with: a bullet to my head right as I rounded the last corner into his room. The thought intrigued me briefly before I dismissed it and the rest of my worthless fantasies.

I forced my muscles to relax a little more. The irony of assassinating the person who had taught you to assassinate was… perplexing. Colonel Hakha had always merited everyone's utmost deference with his wit, charisma, and poise. The man was an icon of professionalism. But then why had he been so spineless as to defect? It didn't make any sense.

Very little in my mind did, at that point.

But who am I to peruse the items of dissension? I killed a Helghast, one of my own comrades in blood and brothers in arms, not too long ago. _Killed_ him. A senior Helghast officer. Did my friend's life really mean more to me than the utter conquest of the ISA by the Helghast juggernaut? Helghan was splitting apart at the seams, or at least it was everywhere I went.

Done waiting, I pushed the nearest door open smoothly and sidled inside, where one lonely lamp illuminated my presence to only inanimate guests. I figured I'd do what I did best: let my orders and my weapons make all of the difficult choices for me.

The interior was awfully Spartan, much like the industrial district of Vekta City nearby. The stairs I spied were made of concrete, a lazy substitute for any other, more acceptable material. They lay beside a chamber which connected to a set of elevators, the guidance panels of which were dark. No one was home.

I made for the nearest staircase, reminding myself Hakha was somewhere within the walls I leaned against. My heart seemed to beat harder, and I became suddenly aware of strange lumps in my throat and curious knots in my stomach. _Am I really going through with this?_ _Was I actually prepared to kill my mentor? _Terror set in. Hesitantly, I pushed ahead.

The landing greeted me with another claustrophobic hallway, presenting a riddling number of doors. I stopped and examined them. It wasn't long at all before I knew which one Hakha resided in. My mind raced, thick with fear.

One of the doors was open.

I stood totally straight for the first time since arriving at the base. Just enough light filtered into the corridor from the door as to suggest a small desk light. I walked with what conviction I had remaining to the door, replacing my SLAR with the Tropov. I trusted my former self to have already loaded it, wanting to avoid alerting Hakha if at all possible.

My boots' footfalls were the only sounds I had the luxury of hearing now. I shut off all unnecessary brain functions at that point, canceling all extraneous transmissions of apprehension and conscience, committing to the mission. It was hard, but I thought I could do it. Pistol ready, I reached the threshold into the room and turned.

A man stood within, less than ten yards away. He faced a window that dominated the far wall of the chamber, hands clasped behind his back. The lights from the excavation could be seen in the distance out the window. His head was clear of hair and helmet, and his brain cords still linked into the back of his head, perhaps still there as a reminder. Otherwise they were superfluous. He was ISA now. I had to believe that.

I realized abruptly that I was hesitating to eliminate my target for the first time in my military career. This was completely unacceptable. But then, without warning, the man spoke.

"I could smell you, you know."

Needless to say, the comment caught me off guard.

The quintessential rasp and accent of his voice was still there, as was his breather mask, albeit sitting idly below his face. How little had changed since we fought for the same cause. Former events flashed through my mind and I found myself hard of speaking. He did it for me, still motionless.

Nonchalantly, he turned to greet me, appearing unarmed. The look on his face was one of his trademark expressions of perpetual disinterest, an archetype flaunted regularly by Helghast Command. His eyes seared into me and I remembered our past together. He had rarely been satisfied. He apparently wasn't now.

Not knowing what else to do, yet wanting some explanation, I spoke.

"It's been a while, Colonel."

His response came through a bit more poisonously than my own.

"I suppose you're here to kill me then. Put me through a traitor's death. Is that right, Lieutenant Colonel?"

_Fuck. _He really had known I was coming. I lost my composure briefly, pulling my head away from the gun, eyeing him cautiously. Although I felt confident I already knew the answer, I felt compelled to ask anyway. I returned my eyes to the pistol sight. "Been keeping up with your computer skills, I see."

He snorted. "Don't be ridiculous, Hovenn. It's my profession. I wasn't just General Lente's Chief of Staff, you know."

"I know."

Another silence, this one shorter because I knew what I wanted to say.

"So why'd you do it?"

He responded, almost without pause. "The defection? The betrayal?" He paused, enjoying himself. "It was a simple choice really, once I was promoted to Command and got to see the Helghast's true colors."

He let that comment sit in the air for a moment, tantalizingly. As much as I hated him having the upper hand, I had to know. I pressed on. "What did you find, Hakha?"

He let his gaze fall to the floor in front of him, trying to see the truth. I could tell he would choose his words carefully. I was his star pupil after all, and as much as he resented my conformity and subordinate status, he respected me for that. I wondered if he had rehearsed this, having known I was on the way.

"I think we've all been lied to, Hovenn. Lied to for far too long."

He returned his stare to me, his eyes swollen with remorse, contrition. "Who are you, Hovenn? You were born in a land full of hatred and greed, as was I. But unlike you, I see through the blindness that Helghan has become. We were taught to associate the ISA with weakness and enemy from the start. We were bred to see the ISA's demise through unwaveringly. So you'll serve to that end, and then what?"

I noticed his voice had begun to rise, gathering potency. I found I was paralyzed by him. "Then the galaxy will be inhabited by mindless _warriors_ just like you and I for an eternity, able to feel only rage and loathing. The Helghast were driven off Earth decades ago, and that is their only justification for total _contempt_."

He paused again, and started to approach me. I stiffened, but held my stance. "The Helghast are an abomination. They are nothing but children, born without the ability to know that _revenge_ serves no end but pointless bloodshed and _more_ _hatred!_ Visari was given a planet to himself and his people, and that should have been enough. But instead he chose to continue meaningless efforts to bring glory and salvation to a people that needed nothing but harmony, and while I don't entirely agree with the ISA banishing the Helghast into exodus, I find even greater failings within Visari's endless spiral of purposeless hostility and death!"

By this time he had come to stand within arm's length of me. His anger seemed to exude waves of heat, waves that penetrate. His fists were clenched and his chest heaved minutely in his fury.

"Now, tell me you believe in Visari. Tell me you believe in Helghan and the unforgivable evil that is the ISA. Or better yet, just kill me."

Returning his gaze, I felt the moment for action arrive. Part of me wanted to spew venom onto his face and then kill him in his agony, laughing at his puny attempt to turn me. But, even amidst that basic part of me, even among that innate willingness I felt to hate and kill ISA which had been beaten into me for as long as I could remember, there was doubt. It had been within me since the invasion of Vekta failed.

I thought of my new mission. I thought of Iziz. I thought of Vaksa. But most of all, and for the very first time in my memory, I _thought_.

"I…"

That was when he took control.


	10. X

**X**

Stepping inwards, he batted my Tropov aside and thrust me back forcefully against the wall next to the door before I even realized what was happening. My arms flailed around for balance, then I came crashing to rest against the wall long enough to return his fiery stare before he struck again.

He kneed me in the stomach. Hard. I started to crumple downwards, trying desperately to regain my breath but he shoved me back upwards and delivered a string of powerful, well-placed blows to my head courtesy of his gloved fists. Reverting to my training and experience, I did what was only natural. I resisted.

Eventually I jolted a forearm out vertically and absorbed most of the force from one of his punches. Surprised, he hesitated for a microsecond, which I quickly used to my advantage. I head butted him viciously, crying out involuntarily in the process. He was sent sprawling backwards, reeling in pain from the blow dealt by my helmet onto his bare head. For a few seconds I didn't follow him, recollecting my senses.

Meanwhile Hakha stood straighter in the center of the room, shaking off the impact as best he could. "So. I suppose I should have expected that. Just like a true Helghast you lash out without remorse at whoever opposes you." He spat the words disgustedly.

He looked at me sternly, waiting for a response. I gave none, not knowing what words would help the situation, not knowing why I was fighting one of my earliest mentors and friends, not knowing what I was doing there in that room in the first place.

Our eyes met, neither of us daring to move. Not surprisingly, he was the one that broke the silence. But it wasn't what I had been expecting him to say.

"Dear Hovenn, trainee, brother, I have failed you." The sentence sounded almost too direct, given its implications. Reproach had overtaken his visage, emotion I had never seen before in my life, from anyone, pouring out from his face. He had hardly changed his expression but somehow I just knew. His voice came in almost sorrowful waves. Once again I was compelled to listen, dumbstruck. Without additional inflection, he resumed.

"Now I see the true results of my training, my work. I have given you all the skills with which to fight but none that might grant you the inclination to _think _about… anything. Your cause, your choices. Even your future. Never have you been taught to ask _why. _Visari and Lente and I and so many others gave you the will to destroy, to eliminate all threats to the Helghan dream, to kill and be killed if necessary, and these acts you have carried out infallibly. But never are you to see the light of truth, of peace. And for that, my friend, I am sorry."

Transfixed, I stood staring back at the broken man. Unable to bear his gaze any longer I moved my eyes to my Tropov, laying idly on the floor and pointed in no particular direction. Silence filled the room and I had only just begun to realize the importance of what Hakha had said when something else interrupted the moment from outside the dimly-lit room.

There were shouts and the noises of a massive crowd moving about the base. Just as both our heads flicked toward the window, Hakha's personal computer chirped atop the desk. He moved to inspect it, forgetting about my presence for the moment. He tapped some commands and summoned what appeared to be a text letter. After a few seconds he returned his attention to me with the news.

"They've uncovered some sort of Helghast explosive device at the dig site. The bomb looks powerful enough that all but a few of the demolitions team are being ordered to vacate the premises for the time being."

My heart instantly started racing again as the nature of my mission took hold. _How the hell was I going to get out of there unseen?_ I was heavily considering making a run for it right then and there, leaving Hakha to his regrets, when he spoke again, understanding my predicament. He moved for the door, as if reading my mind.

"Follow me. I know a route that they won't take and we can sort the rest of this out later."

Knowing he was my only hope for the moment, I retrieved my Tropov as he passed me out the door. The voices beside the barracks became muted as we emerged into the hall hurriedly. I didn't look back.

Somewhere behind us an alarm began to sound.

\\ \\ \\

We headed to the northeast end of the base, neatly avoiding the throng of ISA exiting all on southerly vectors.

I followed a few feet behind Hakha the whole way, thinking of what I was going to do when we reached the outskirts. Was I going to kill him and finish the job, even though he was giving me a second chance? Was I going to flee from him, knowing what he'd said was probably right? With so many new thoughts and revelations entering my mind I wasn't sure I knew what was right anymore, who to trust.

I didn't know what to do. I couldn't focus. Nothing made any _sense_.

After an interminable amount of time and running, the two-lane paved road we were traveling along went under a covered bridge connecting two buildings and turned into an opening with an enormous gate much like the one I'd driven the stolen supply truck through earlier that night. The end of my journey was practically in sight and I still had no idea what I was doing.

Suddenly, the base-wide alarm that had been droning on incessantly was cut off by a man's voice. So far away from the dig site and the center of the compound it was tough to make out what exactly he was saying. Hakha and I both stopped wordlessly and strained to understand the garbled message. The only certain property of the voice was its urgency, though it became much clearer after we'd stopped.

_"…we are unable to disarm the Helghast warhead at this time… yield is unknown, could be a nuke… all staff not already outside the facility's limits are advised to do so with all haste… bomb's countdown reads 00:00:27… moving to best shelter now…"_

When I looked back to Hakha he was already ahead of me, entering a gate code at a waist-high pedestal at the base of the great steel doors. I started towards him as he bent over the pad for a retinal scan, hearing it chime an acceptance tune. With a great moan of activation the gates began a slow, grinding swing inwards.

Hakha turned to me, his face almost a bright contrast against the inky blackness of the night around us. "Out you go," he said flatly. I passed him and went through the two gates just as they were far enough apart to admit a human's dimensions. As I cleared the gates, Hakha followed quickly, and we emerged into a small, flat area punctuated by rocks and bits of scrub. The ever-familiar woods loomed in the background.

Just then the ground beneath shook violently, and an instant later the air was pervaded with the booming sound of the warhead detonating. We both turned again to see the first traces of smoke trailing into the already darkened sky as soot and dirt disturbed by the explosion fell in a giant cloud that blanketed the interior of the headquarters slowly but deliberately. The tallest buildings nearest the excavation had been turned to rubble and shrapnel during the initial blast while those just beyond them now toppled downward with seemingly glacial slowness. Fires could be discerned at the center of the base, and with equal speed ISA firefighters appeared on the scene, water from their hoses making lofty arcs into the air over a mile away.

Hakha turned to face me after a few seconds. I lowered my head, remembering the graveness of my situation. The trouble was, I still didn't know what was about to happen next, what Hakha was going to do. What _I _was going to do. Turns out I didn't need to worry about the decision any longer at all.

Returning my head to Hakha's direction I noticed he wasn't actually looking at me, but past me.

There came a sound from behind me, as of a Tropov being loaded and cocked. I became suddenly very afraid, the realization that I couldn't possibly mistake that sound for anything else slamming down upon me. With the horror of the unknown gripping me intensely, I swung around slowly and greeted the lone assassin with terror-stricken eyes. What I saw could hardly have comforted me.

Iziz stood halfway to the forest from us, legs planted shoulder-width apart, pistol leveled at me. Blood had seeped through his uniform in large amounts, clotting around his left kidney. He made a point of staving off the pain, standing completely erect.

"Iziz," I said. None of us moved. I wasn't sure what was going on, but my oldest and best friend was pointing a gun at me and my mind screamed at my body to fix that. Fear and desperation overwhelmed me. _What was going on?! _"Iziz, no!"

"I'm sorry, Hovenn," was all he said.

Once again the moment drew into an eternity, my undying warrior senses activated one final time. It all became clear then, what was actually going on, what was going to happen. _So this is how it ends: A traitor's death for me. Bullet to the head via Tropov. Iziz must have seen me fraternizing with the enemy and now he's just carrying out Visari's will._

I didn't blink, only stared aghast at my wounded comrade as he squinted into the pistol's optical sight and squeezed off one solitary, lethal round. Light from the embers of the fires behind us flashed across his eyes, illuminating his unquestionable determination. Very well. It's what I would have done, after all. I accepted my fate, and waited for the shell to penetrate my delicate brain tissue and end my cursed life.

But the end never came.

Gregor Hakha's body slumped to the ground beside me.


	11. Epilogue

**EPILOGUE**

**P A R I A H**

Vekta.

This godforsaken world on which I've met my fate. Visari would be ashamed at me just for saying that. For doubting his noble crusade for an instant. But I don't care. Visari would have me executed for what I was about to do.

I watched Iziz's lifeless corpse for a while, hesitating. I'd drug Hakha's body into the woods for cover, his head trailing gore the whole way. I was impressed that I could still function well enough to do so with my mind in such turmoil in the aftermath of that shot. It was a beautiful shot, all told, though not at the target I had been expecting. Iziz had always had a marksman's eye that rivaled mine. Now his eyes only looked to oblivion, longingly.

We'd spoken briefly, the two of us, just before he gave in to his wounds and collapsed at my feet, exhaling his last breath. It's a miracle he'd made it that far on his own in his condition, and it wasn't clear whether he'd been a covert stowaway on the next truck to pass our ambush point or if he'd performed another assault on the passing vehicle. The former seemed more likely, but I'm not one to underestimate a fellow soldier's capabilities, especially Iziz's.

We hadn't talked for very long. Neither of us could really know what exactly was going on inside my head, but he seemed to understand. The look in his eyes told me that. His eyes and the way I knew he respected me and my decisions.

He'd asked me 'why,' much like I'd asked Hakha not an hour before. At the time I'd had trouble answering him. I just hadn't known, exactly. Why Hakha's words had made such an impact on me. Why I had reason to feel guilt. Why, for once, I hadn't made the kill.

I needed time to think. I couldn't with their faces anywhere in sight.

I took one of our jetbikes and left their bodies to the soil.

\\ \\ \\

It's been a few days since that excruciating moment.

I've been hunkered down amidst some veldt about fifty clicks outside ISA headquarters, trying to get my thoughts straight. It isn't easy.

I've thought about what Hakha said. I'd been the golden kid up until that fateful night, when questions had started to cloud my mind. Questions turned to doubt turned to logic and I hadn't resisted long. Despite all that's happened, and even after all this time _trying_ to make sense out of what I know and don't know, I still haven't been able to decide who to trust and who to oppose. I have, however, made one desire clear.

I don't want to fight anymore.

Visari says the ISA are to be punished at all costs; Hakha says Visari is a fool. Maybe they're both wrong. Like I said, I don't know. For now, I just want to get away from this godforsaken planet. Forget about the dead and this abomination of a war. I can't go home, but I can go _somewhere._

I never did find out if my superiors sent a drop ship to extract us or not. I have a feeling the Helghast won't mount another offensive on Vekta for at least a few weeks. As I know all too well, Helghan doesn't like getting its nose bloodied, and it won't tolerate another defeat. The Helghast will brood, and return only if they know they will capture Vekta. Of this I am sure.

On this night I commit myself to irreversible Helghast sin. I begin a process Hakha undertook many years ago, though my methods are surely cruder than his. I'm at all sure if it would work, if I won't die somewhere along the way, but it's my only hope at longevity. I would gladly perish here, if only while making my best attempt at escape. In the second phase I'm about to perform, asphyxiation will certainly be a possibility, so I'll proceed very slowly, easing forward bit by bit. The journey will be long and arduous, yet necessary.

Free of doubt and fear, I reached both hands up to my goggles and gently peeled them off for the first time in my recent memory. The feeling was multi-dimensional: my eyes fully absorbed the abyss of the night's darkness and my skin felt the crisp whip of the air upon them. And this was only the beginning. I let the goggles fall to the ground absently.

Humanization.

With my newborn sight, I looked to the only bright object in the sky: one of Vekta's moons, the name of which eluded me. It shone a slate-gray above the ISA base, waning. The fires that had engulfed the base had long since subsided—all that's left now are the ashes.

With great care, I knelt down on both knees and withdrew my combat knife one last time. Vaksa's blood was gone, wiped away in my ever-recurring cycle of weapons upkeep. I thought of him as I brought the knife up to my breather mask, anticipating the culture shock.


End file.
